Jazz

Trio Follows Documentary Screening At Real Art Ways Feb. 14

Pianist Mary DiPaola was a classical performance major at The Hartt School when she was bitten by the jazz bug.

"I went to a concert of the student big band and it happened to be a night when [saxophonist and McLean Institute founder] Jackie McLean was featured as a performer," DiPaola told CTNow. "Everything about it was different and exciting. Everyone knew who he was, and they were excited he was performing. The musicians had a camaraderie with each other, and it was so different than the classical world."

The experience led to a lifelong journey as a jazz musician. "It really got me thinking about listening to jazz music, and I wanted to learn how to play that way," DiPaola said. "I ended up switching my major."

Twenty years later, DiPaola is an active musician in the Greater Hartford area and a teacher at Sunset Ridge Academy for Fine and Performing Arts and World Languages in East Hartford. She and her longtime trio — bassist Brian Jenkins and drummer Ben Bilello — will perform at Real Art Ways in Hartford on Valentine's Day immediately following a screening of "The Girls In The Band," a new documentary chronicling the lives of female jazz musicians from the swing era through the present-day.

Being a female jazz musician, DiPaola said, "wasn't something I thought about that much, and everybody [at Hartt] was very welcoming. But looking back on it, even in a small program of around 40 or so musicians, there were very few of us who were female." Today, when someone calls DiPaola for a gig, "it's not because I'm a woman but rather because I'm a musician."

Early on, DiPaola struggled to make the jump from classical to jazz. "[Jazz] felt so open-ended," DiPaola said. "I wasn't really sure how to begin." Without a score to follow, she said, "there was a sense of 'what do I do first?'"

Gradually, DiPaola started thinking about improvisation as a language she could master. "Listening to great musicians on record and in person reminded me of when I was learning Italian," she said. "I started to equate the two things." After graduating from Hartt with a bachelor's degree in 1990, DiPaola taught in the jazz and theory programs until 2005, all the while raising three children and working toward her master's degree, which she earned in 2008.

DiPaola met Jenkins, a bassist who was a year behind her in the jazz program, soon after switching her major. The two eventually met drummer Bilello, who entered the McLean Institute program several years later. Together, they've performed an average of 15-20 gigs per year, DiPaola estimated, playing mostly standards but some originals as well. Not much rehearsal is needed anymore; sometimes all they need to prepare for a gig is to swap a few text messages or e-mails with names of songs and key signatures.

DiPaola plans to view "The Girls In The Band" along with the audience at Real Art Ways on Friday, before her trio performs. While the working conditions for female jazz instrumentalists have certainly improved over time, DiPaola said, there are a few lingering prejudices.

"Sometimes, the assumption when I got a call [for a gig] was that I was going to sing as well," DiPaola said. "That situation has come up more than once. That would clear a room in a hurry."

MARY DIPAOLA PIANO TRIOappears Friday, Feb. 14, at Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St., Hartford. Tickets are $4.50-$10. Show time is immediately following a screening of "The Girls In The Band," which begins at 7:30 p.m. Information: 860-232-1006, realartways.org.